


When You Forget To Empty Your Pockets

by VampAmber



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Anxious Castiel (Supernatural), Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Complete, Confused Castiel (Supernatural), Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Domestic Boyfriends, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dorks in Love, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fluff, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Misunderstandings, Nervous Dean Winchester, No Smut, One Shot, Worried Castiel (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25570186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampAmber/pseuds/VampAmber
Summary: Castiel is begrudgingly doing the laundry, while his boyfriend Dean is at work, when out of one of the pockets in Dean's jeans falls a ring. An engagement ring? Couldn't be. Or could it? After losing an argument with himself, repeatedly, he decides to just ask Dean about it when he gets home. Waiting two hours for the answers shouldn't be that hard. Or could it?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 155





	When You Forget To Empty Your Pockets

**Author's Note:**

> Quick thank you to all the people who were kicking and beating up my muse for me. It worked, kinda. Not the sequel that I reeeeeeeeeeally wanna write, but cute fic nonetheless. Gods, I missed writing. Hopefully I'm not jinxing this by saying it, but I think I might finally be able to start writing and publishing more often than twice a year. Trust me, no matter how much of a fan you are, I am still the happiest one about that, by at least a few billion times. Who knows, maybe I'll finally write that romance novel for Harlequin that I have about two pages of? *bursts out laughing and keeps it up for a while* Me? Finish anything that long (the average word count for submission is 55k)? Yeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh...

Castiel grumbled to himself as he sorted the dirty clothing, the same dirty clothing that he’d been asking Dean to sort whenever he brought in his clothes. “Is it really that difficult of a concept to learn, Dean?” Castiel muttered. “Lights, darks, and whites. There’s even a separate basket in here for each.” He let out a tortured sigh, incredibly glad that Dean had taken that extra shift at work today, so that his boyfriend could complain about his bad habits without fear of being overheard.

Dean and Castiel had been living together for almost three years now, and had been dating for nearly four years before that. Castiel loved his boyfriend more than he had ever thought was possible, but there would always be those minor quirks that would annoy him. Like Dean never bothered to hang his coat in the closet. Or sometimes he made the coffee way too strong, and Castiel had to pour some extra water in it to make it drinkable. And, obviously, when Dean just dumped the clothes hamper’s contents next to the washer, unsorted. Nothing to properly fight over, just little annoyances.

Though doing laundry in their apartment was made even trickier, since Dean often forgot to clear out his pockets when he took off a pair of jeans. The first time, there’d been a few fast food napkins in a back pocket that had been torn to pieces and covered all the clothing in the washer, as well as the inside of the washer itself. After spending five minutes cleaning out the washer’s drum before running the clothing through a second time, Castiel had learned very quickly to always check pockets.

Castiel rolled his eyes as he pulled two chewing gum wrappers and a few pennies from a jeans pocket. “I swear,” Castiel said, his voice no longer quite as vexed, “if it weren’t for the fact that the washer almost explodes every time Dean goes near it, I’d make him do the weekly laundry instead.” He mentally shivered, remembering the floor in the laundry room covered in at least three inches of soap suds, which kept spewing from the washer they’d had before needing to replace it with this one. They never could figure out exactly how it had happened, since Dean wasn’t the type of person to really mess up on purpose in order to get out of doing chores, and he certainly wouldn’t lie to Castiel like that. When they’d finally had to replace it, Dean was officially never allowed to do laundry again.

_One more pair of jeans, only four pockets left to go_ , Castiel thought in relief. The back pockets only revealed a few old receipts, and the first front pocket yielded nothing but a few bits of lint. Pulling out a few crumpled up bills from the last pocket, he let out a gasp when he saw that two of them were twenties. “Wow, that was close,” he thought out loud. He’d definitely have to get on Dean more often to empty out his pockets, if this was the kind of things that could be destroyed in the rinse cycle.

As Castiel unfolded the bills, he heard a little _tink_ noise, like something metal had hit the floor. Confused, he put the money on the top of the dryer and bent down to see what had dropped. Where he’d been expecting a button, he saw…

“No, it can’t be,” Castiel said in shock, his hand frozen halfway to the ring on the floor. The ring that looked a lot like an engagement ring. “Can it?”

“I mean,” he started to argue with himself, “we have been together for almost seven years now, so maybe it is an engagement ring for me.” Then he took the devil’s advocate role. “But there’s no way he would leave something important like that loose in a jeans pocket. Those things usually come in fancy boxes, so that the person could kneel as they opened the box and proposed. Or is that only in the movies?”

Castiel shook his head to try and clear it. He knew he was working himself into a mental mess, but when he tried to calm down and just breathe, his brain only sped up. “It definitely looks like an engagement ring, so it probably is one. But why would he buy it, then not give it to me, and instead shove it in his jeans pocket like it didn’t matter?”

Castiel finally picked up the mysterious piece of jewelry, and turned it over in his hand to look more closely. “Kind of plain looking. Then again, Dean knows that I hate overly decorated things. So this has to be an engagement ring, right?”

“It doesn’t look very big,” Castiel pondered, holding the ring next to his hand to measure it. “Dean would know to get a big enough size, wouldn’t he? Though I’ve never worn a ring before, so maybe he was just off in his guessing?”

“Or maybe…” Castiel stopped in the middle of the thought, then grabbed his hair in frustration. “Argh!” The yell was pretty therapeutic, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to get anything done until he had actual answers. Leaving the washer open, mostly filled with dirty clothing, he lightly stomped into the front room. Dean wouldn’t be home for at least two more hours, and Castiel knew he might not survive that long without exploding, or something equally messy. So to avoid said explosion, he needed to find a distraction. He turned on the television and changed it immediately to the National Geographic channel, and he forced himself to pay attention to the Jane Goodall documentary until he was finally distracted enough to pay attention normally.

Castiel had been so immersed in the documentary that he literally let out a squeak and jolted at the sound of the apartment door being unlocked, then opened. He pulled the ring out from his own jeans pocket, trying to ignore the irony of the move, before rushing over to the entryway. “Dean,” he called out, a little too loud, a little too nervous.

“Heya, Cas,” Dean replied, actually bothering to put his coat in the closet for once. But his boyfriend barely noticed as he stood in front of Dean, looking as nervous as he felt, most likely.

“Cas, is everything okay?” Dean asked, concerned.

“I... “ Cas started, his mind jumbling words around at the speed of light. “I found this,” he finally managed to say, softly, as he held out his hand to show Dean the ring.

“Awesome,” Dean responded, confusing the hell out of Castiel. “Where the hell did you find that?”

“It was… it was in your pocket, in the laundry, in your dirty laundry,” Castiel stammered out, his confusion getting worse by the second. If it were an engagement ring, shouldn’t Dean be freaking out that Castiel had found it before he’d proposed?

All these questions were starting to give Castiel a headache, but Dean continued on, completely oblivious to anything that could possibly be stressful or confusing about this situation.

“I’ve been looking all over for that damn thing,” Dean said with a chuckle, before taking the ring from Castiel’s still outstretched hand. “Good thing you’re the one who does the laundry. I’d’ve never caught it.”

“Is it…” Castiel sputtered out, having absolutely no clue whatsoever of what was going on right now. “Is it an engagement ring? For me?”

Dean’s smile finally disappeared, and he started to stammer a little himself. “No, Cas… Shit, this has been messing with you all day, hasn’t it? I’m so freaking sorry,” he said, before pulling Castiel into the tightest hug he could manage.

“Whose is it, then?” Castiel asked, feeling a little better now, but still confused.

“Remember when my mom and Eileen came over for brunch last weekend? Sam gave this ring to Eileen for a birthday present, but it was too big. She had it in her purse to take to a jeweler’s to get it resized, but it must’ve fell out, cuz I found it in between the couch cushions last night,” Dean explained.

“Yeah, that does make sense,” Castiel replied. His confusion and anxiety had left the building, but he felt a little disappointed, because even if the situation had been panic-inducing, he had really hoped that Dean would be proposing soon. “Not an engagement ring, just a regular one.”

Dean quickly shoved the ring into his current jeans pocket, before turning around and opening the closet door back up. He grabbed something from his coat’s pocket, before turning back around with a huge smile. “No Cas, this one’s the engagement ring,” Dean said, before dropping to his knee in that same pose Castiel had pictured earlier. He could barely breathe as Dean asked, “Castiel Novak, will you marry me?”

Castiel felt tears flowing from his eyes, because this was the happiest he’d ever been, especially compared to earlier. “Yes, of course!” He answered, shouting loud enough that it proved good thinking in finding an apartment complex that had nice, thick walls, though the noises they made during sex already proved that on an almost nightly basis.

Dean shot to his feet to grab Castiel and kiss him, hard. “I love you so fucking much, Cas,” Dean whispered in between kisses.

“I love you too, Dean, and I always will,” Castiel replied, right before they pulled apart.

Dean reached for the actual engagement ring to slip it onto his new fiance’s finger, then they both quickly discovered that Dean hadn’t even opened the box yet. He blushed as he finally opened it and held out the ring. It was simple and silver, and it had just enough to decorate it without it being too much. In other words, it was perfect.

Dean grimaced slightly as he held the ring a few inches away from Castiel’s hand. “Still wanna marry me, even though I’m an idiot?” He asked, chuckling a little.

“Considering how I was acting earlier, I’d say we’d make a matching set of idiots,” Castiel teased. They were both laughing as Dean finally slid the ring onto Castiel’s finger. They shared another incredibly passionate kiss, then headed to the bedroom to celebrate even further.

Thick walls were so awesome sometimes.

**Author's Note:**

> It seems like my muse is best motivated lately by prompts that are mildly specific, while giving me a fuckton of space to play with. This one was another from JenSpinner over at Destiel Port. This time it was "Dirty Laundry". Again, holy fuck did I miss writing. <3


End file.
